There’s strength in numbers, and some of the best lessons in business can’t be learned from a book.

Those were ideas behind “Morning Mentors,” a new event offered in Altoona, along with five other metro communities, last Thursday. They were held at the same time, coordinated by 13 area chambers of commerce.

It was a mass effort to show solidarity, said Melissa Horton, executive vice president of the Altoona Area Chamber. She led the local Morning Mentors session at the club room of Hy-Vee.

“Actually, each of us knows how important it is to give a hand up to new leaders in our communities and the businesses we serve. … We wanted to show that we support regionalism and can work together for the greater good of the area,” she said.

Potential mentors stood out to chamber staff from their involvement with Women of Vision. That reoccurring event, added by the Altoona Area Chamber in 2014, offers a lunchtime networking opportunity that includes speakers from the area business community.

“The network has grown and we’ve been able to learn more about fantastic women doing incredible things in and around our community,” Horton said. “We sent out a request to those whom we thought might be interested in being mentors for this first-time event and had a great response.”

In Altoona, the panel of mentors included Sara Kurovski, mayor of Pleasant Hill; Mary Simon, branch manager and vice president of Bankers Trust in Altoona; Lori Slings, vice president of mortgage lending at Bankers Trust; Karla Brazelton, career services specialist with Purdue University Global (formerly Kaplan University); and Twila Shreves, owner of Hidden Treasures Gifts and Boutique in Altoona.

“We wanted to bring out folks that could speak to different types of business and leadership,” Horton said. “We have a great group that will be honest about their journey and are examples of advanced citizenry within eastern Polk County.”

Though “speed mentoring” had been the order of the morning, Altoona’s Morning Mentors quickly evolved into more of a roundtable discussion. The group first tackled a question posed by Horton: “How did you recover from your biggest failure?”

Kurovski was among the panel members who answered, recalling a moment from high school that forever changed her perspective on “failure.”

Her teacher had pulled down several maps in front of the classroom, starting with the southside of Des Moines, home of Lincoln High School. Each time the students acknowledged what they were seeing, he would roll up the map to reveal another behind it: the city’s southside to Des Moines proper, to central Iowa, to the Midwest … and so on, until the class beheld the galaxy.

That was before satellite images were available online, Kurovski joked, but his point was clear: Each person, each problem encountered, is just a speck in the universe.

“He was like, ‘Your problems are this big. … When they happen, I just want you to go back to these maps and remember, something else will happen that’s better. Something else will happen that’s bad. And you just keep moving forward,’” Kurovski recounted.

Moving forward may be on the agenda for Morning Mentors. At the close of the event, attendees expressed interest in a second installment. Horton highlighted the importance of sharing ideas and stories at such events.

“We are a network, ladies,” she said “We are a tribe right here. We’ve heard each other’s story a little bit. We’ve learned a little bit more about each other, so let’s be that network for each other. … The more we do this, the bigger our tribe gets.”